How I coated my '58 Remy grips to look just like ivory

Mykeal wrote:
Why can't you return a gun purchased on Gunbroker.com?
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I guess if I really pushed it I could return it Mykeal. But it would be a hassle and I got a really good deal on this 1851 Marshall and it is absolutely perfect except for those two raised grip area imperfections.....and I can fix those easier than it would be to package it up, return it, upset the nice guy who sold it to me (we've talked a few times on the phone) by asking him to give me a refund (which I actually can't FORCE him to do anyway) and him then have to relist it, then I'd have to wait until another one came up for auction when I have seen three of these same revolvers on Gunbroker recently (I bid on several) going for more money than I paid that the metal was not nearly in as good condition as this one is. It's not his fault anyway and it's a small factory defect that can be very easily sanded out.

Or I could simply do a little sanding that takes less than 5 mins and fix it. So as you can see, I don't want to return it. I am very happy with the condition of its metal and overall absolutely like new condition. I mean it doesn't even have any slight scratches of blems on any of the metal at all. It is like brand spanking new right out of the box condition. I will either sand those imperfections in the grips out and keep them wood looking, or coat them faux ivory.

I'm just torn and trying to decide which one to do. It would be a no brainer to ivory coat them if they were an old kind of dinged up set that could only be improved by coating them. But this is a pretty new condition set of grips with just two little raised imperfections in them that can easily be sanded down. And once I spray primer and epoxy on them, it is extremely hard if not almost impossible to get that out of the wood grain if I decided I wanted to go back to wood look later. So once I started coating them, I'd be pretty much committed to that for the life of those new condition grips. So I gotta think hard about that.

I have a similar situation but even more so on my 1860 ASM grips that are Rosewood. I thought about coating them ivory too, but the Rosewood on my ASM is just too nice to cover up. I'm still thinking about coating this Marshall's grips though. Nothing particularly special about the wood or its grain. Just that once I do it, it's got to stay that way and them being like new grips (albeit two slight imperfections) just makes the decision difficult.

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Noz wrote:
I saw a gun treated much as above that the owner had taken some very coarse sandpaper, made a single pass down each grip adding scratches ranging from very shallow to deep. He rubbed antiquing stain into the scratches and then sprayed another coat of clear over them.
Looks like aged and cracked grain in the ivory. Cool!
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I'd like to hear more in detail exactly how and what he used to do that with, like what stain, grit sandpaper, and see some pics of that too. Sounds very interesting Noz. Sounds like something I'd like to try, but only on an old set of grips that were already beat up....not a new set.


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I think he grabbed a piece of 60 grit or something similar. One pass gently. Been several years since I saw them. Been trying to remember the name but am having a severe bout of CRS.
I also would try the technique first on a slab of wood rather than a finished grip.
 
Bill, I am going to state MY opinion on "to coat or not to coat" I am not a real big fan of ivory grips, although they look good and your paint "trick" is very well done (from the pics). I think that coating the grips on your new "Marshal" would draw away form the engraving, I personally would smooth them out and apply a finish that would compliment the guns features.
 
If you like them, fine. They look painted to me. And how long they will hold up is still to be seen. Grips are not that hard to make and there are a couple 'faux' ivory materials available that look very natural and hold up well. I have Jay Scott fake stag grips on one revolver. Not everyone likes it but I do and they have been on that pistol for 35 years. Hold up well.
BTW, there must not be a word limit on these threads. Lotsa words to say "I painted my grips."
 
I think they look pretty decent. I have my doubts about them holding up under heavy use tho but I doubt they'll see that. Some of us suck at wood working. I know I do. As for using them on engraved guns they'll look just fine. I don't think they'll detract from the engraving. Wild Bill had ivories on his engraved 51's
 
I like the look of white grips on stainless or polished steel. I think that the two complement each other: white grips on white steel.
They're showy and classy looking, and the SS ROA's that come with white grips are highly desired by many folks.
Considering that the Colt wood grip has some imperfections, IMO that makes it a good candidate for the white epoxy treatment.
 
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Thanks Hawg and Arcticap. Your opinions helped me make up my mind. I too think the ivory grips look great on nickel and stainless revolvers. And like you said Hawg, Wild Bill had ivories on his 1851's.

Today I sanded those imperfection on the left side of the one piece 1851 grip out. Once I did that it exposed the grain under the finish that Pietta had on them. There was nothing special about the grain or the wood, so instead of keeping them wood looking, I decided since I had sanded that part down, I went ahead and lightly sanded the whole 1851's double sided one piece grip and after doing a lot of masking inside the grip, sprayed both sides with auto primer and let that dry and then lightly sanded that with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Then I sprayed just one side with two coats of epoxy about 1 hour apart from each other. Just checked them and they are dry to the touch now but I'm going to let them cure good for another day before I flip it over to epoxy the other side with two thick coats like I did the other side.

Then I'll let that side cure for a couple of days, then very lightly smooth the epoxy finish out on both sides with some 600 grit and then spray just one side with clear polyurethane, wait a day or two for that to cure (so when I flip it over it won't ding the paint), and then clear poly spray the other side.

So it will be a few days yet to complete but I'll post pics when its all done.



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Well my experiment with coating two piece grip panels to look just like ivory worked out great for my Remy.

However; doing the same on one piece 1851 grips was an entirely different story.

With the two piece Remy grips it was easy to simply lay each grip panel on a flat surface and spray it with the hard epoxy, extremely white paint, let that dry, then followup with a coat of clear polyurethane which covered the extremely white epoxy paint with a slightly yellowish coating giving the grips a very realistic ivory color look. So for two piece grips it worked out great for me.

But it's just as important to post about failures as it is successes, so that others can learn by our failures and not make the same mistakes. So here's one.....

The one piece grip on my 1851 Marshall was a real pain to mask inside. So many contours and edges. But I did that with masking tape anyway. (I hung the one piece grips up with wire so I could spray all around them rather than just doing one side at a time). I had sanded down the factory imperfections in my Marshall grips and gave them a light coat of grey auto primer. Then sanded that with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper.
Then I sprayed on the epoxy paint and let that dry for several days.

One thing about this epoxy paint. It takes at least a week for even a moderate coat to fully cure....even hanging outside in the hot summer Florida sun. Then I would sand it with 220 followed by 600 grit sandpaper. But I kept getting imperfections in the paint from my sanding. What was happening was the top of the paint was dry, but as I sanded it....it would still not be fully cured underneath....and it would "wrinkle" the paint.

Then I would have to wait a few more days letting it hang up in the sun to cure THAT exposed wrinkled portion until I could sand the "wrinkles" out.
This went on and on with me sanding out wrinkles and then respraying the one piece grip. Until....I had built up WAY TOO MUCH paint on the grips. I couldn't oven bake the grips either because the epoxy paint doesn't seem to like the oven and wrinkled when I tried drying it in the oven. (I have a shop oven so wifey doesn't get mad at me for using her kitchen oven :D.)

Finally I had sanded the epoxy smooth and finally had the grip ready for the final topcoat of epoxy paint to cover up my final sanding marks. Then I sprayed it one final time with the white hard epoxy paint. And let that dry for several days hanging outside in the hot sun. Everything seemed to be working out and all I needed to do next was very lightly 600 grit sand the grips and then spray them with clear polyurethane to get that ivory look.

I lightly sanded them and sprayed them with the clear polyurethane. But the surface of my grips were so smooth by now that the clear polyurethane didn't adhere that well believe it or not....and ran to the edges and collected there in lines that would have to be sanded out. RATS!

So I let that dry and sanded the clear poly down with 220 grit followed by 600 grit. This was hopefully the last time I would have to sand I thought.

Well....as I was sanding the overrun clear poly and epoxy paint that had built up so thick on the grips (about 1/32's thick) suddenly a fingerpad sized section of the paint on the grips just wrinkled and went inward.

That ruined everything. There was no way I could fix that without stripping EVERYTHING off the grip and starting completely over! DOUBLE RATS!

I had used too much epoxy and not let it dry sufficiently between coats. The top shell was cured but underneath it was still not completely cured and pressure from sanding moved the paint underneath the top cured shell and ruined everything. Chiefly because it takes so long for the epoxy to cure and I had used too much even though I knew better because this same thing has happened to me before on other projects. I was counting on the epoxy being cured enough and it wasn't.

So I immersed the grip in a container of brake fluid (not having any paint stripper immediately on hand) and let it soak for several hours. Then I fingernail scrapped off all the paint. Finally when I had it down to most of the paint off, I used drywall sanding sheets that go on a reciprocal sander that have little square holes all over the sheet. That way the gummy paint would not load up the paper and make it slick like it would if I used regular sandpaper.

I got all the paint off and yes I could have started all over again recoating it, but with brake fluid in the wood that might preclude paint from adhering correctly, I decided to just keep them walnut. They came out fine and look even better than they did with their raised imperfections from the factory that I had sanded out so they are smooth now. Plus I had sanded out the clear coating they put on them at the factory and now they are very smooth walnut with linseed oil rubbed into them. I like them better than how they originally came. Here's a few pics of them AFTER I had sanded the raised factory imperfections out, and AFTER I removed all the paint off them from my failed project, and after I rubbed linseed oil into them....

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So no harm done and my grips are back to their wooden look but even better since I sanded out the raised factory imperfections and got the clear coat off and linseed oil rubbed finished them.
So ended my experiment in epoxy painting ONE PIECE 1851 grips.

What I (and we) learned from this is that two piece grip panels work very well for epoxy coating and then clear (yellowish) polyurethane coating to realistically imitate ivory. But ONE PIECE grips are a bit more of a pain.
Two piece panels lay right on a flat surface and require no masking and are easy to paint. The one piece grips require a lot of inside the grip masking and have so many contours to mask and that create other problems that they are not worth trying to do the same thing with. Two piece=yes, one piece=no.

I did find a site online where you can send them a tracing of your grips and they will send you a three piece kit with two grip panels and a spacer where the panels are just slightly oversize to your tracings so you can sand them to an exact fit and the spacer goes between the two grip panels and you glue it to the back side of the panels once properly positioned. They cost approx $38.00 and you can pay $14.00 extra and have a selection of medallions put in them if you desire. If I decide I just HAVE to have ivory colored grips on my 1851 Marshall, (and I probably will)....I will send in my tracing and order a set from here, probably with the big texas star medallion in them since I really liked that medallion out of all their medallion choices....
http://www.tombstonegrips.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TGG&Category_Code=Colt

So feel free to do the coating I described in this thread on TWO piece grip panels, but I wouldn't personally try it again on one piece grips. Too much masking, too many contours, and although the paint and sandpaper are cheap, the time it takes for ONE PIECE grips isn't worth it. I wish now I had just ordered a $38.00 set with the $14.00 medallions and not have wasted my time. BUT....my two piece Remy grips DID turn out just fine and I wouldn't hesitate to do a TWO PIECE set again.....just not another ONE PIECE set.

Learn from my experience without having to go through what I went through over the past several weeks trying to get this one piece grip ivory coated.

All for now.






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That wood looks very nice, now! I agree that it's an improvement over the original finish, so even though the "ivory" finish was a bust, it ended up looking pretty darn good.

Oh, and I'll give two thumbs' up to Tombstone Gun Grips. I've had them do grips for several old guns whose grips had really suffered the ravages of time. It does take a few weeks to get the grips and they do require some finish sanding, but the product is first rate. That was the only place I could find who would make a set of grips for my Llama IX-B 1911 semi-clone.
 
I can appreciate the time, and work you have put into making the grips for your revolvers. I have looked at some in person and seeing them up close, and now in the pics you posted the ones I looked at were the more white than the ones you have done. I don't like the white on anything I see them on. Well not true. The ones I looked at were on blued revolvers, not my cup of tea. The SS models with the ivory look good. I want to get some kind of grips to replace the ones on one of my 51 Colts, and one of my 58s. I'm thinking stag for the 58. Thinking about blood worm grips for the little Colt. On the show Gun Smoke when the show is going off there is a Colt hanging off the wall and you can get a good look at the grips on it do any of you know what they are. I want to say stag but what the hack do I know. Think you for sharing your work with use. ShotPut. :)
 
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